Tuesday, October 04, 2011

Virgin Gaming: Call of Duty Elite 'not a threat'

The Battlefield 3 Worldwide Conquest Tournament helps EA compete with Call of Duty Elite, Activision’s social service which also includes a competitive gaming element with prizes up for grabs, according to Virgin Gaming.

“We view it as one of the top industry leaders taking notice of what Virgin Gaming is doing and trying to implement it themselves. Which is great. We wish them nothing but success. I wouldn’t be surprised if Activision was a part of Virgin Gaming next year.

"We are very excited to see how Elite is going to do and how the community is going to receive it, are they going to view it as too hardcore? Or too expensive? It is going to be trial and error for Activision in the first year and I am excited to see it.”

The company says it has hit the jackpot with its official $1.6m Battlefield 3 gaming tournament.

The online competitive games specialist claims its EA deal has opened doors for them, helping the outfit score major clients such as 2K Games, THQ and Codemasters.

The company will give away some £2.6m in prizes to its members over the next 12 months. And it promised that its service can help sell DLC and keep developers’ games out of the pre-owned bins.

“When a company like EA trusts you with their $1bn IP, people see that and say ‘If EA is willing to do this then they must know something we don’t,’” said Virgin Gaming co-founder Zachary Zeldin.

“We have been teaching developers about how we can be beneficial to their game, how we are going to keep users engaged in their product more, how we can roll out DLC for them and help sell more of this extra content, or how we can keep their games out of the second-hand shelves for six months longer.

“If Battlefield has a map pack that EA wants to release, we can run a $50,000 or a $100,000 tournament specific to that map pack. So now they have to buy that map pack.